Page 16 of Forget Me Not

I stop short when I see possibly the biggest yellow lab in the history of yellow labs eating the cat food I laid out earlier in the night. I’m so startled, the door bangs shut behind me, scaring him to back a few steps.

“Not the cat food, you a-hole,” I complain and he hangs his head low.

Great, now I feel like the a-hole.

He retreats a few steps, backing up to the dumpster like I might hurt him. He’s skinny, some of his ribs pocking out of his sides. My heart cracks a little bit, seeing the sadness in his eyes.

Usually, we don’t get stray dogs out here on the island. The only ones we do get are from the boats that bring the supplies or fisherman with no sense of human decency that just leave their pets here.

I could never. Not with a sweet face like this.

Dammit.

“Come here, buddy.” I kneel down, holding out my hand to him, but he doesn’t come. “Okay, hold on a minute.”

Carefully, I grab the container of chicken Gran made me from my bag and pull some out, tossing it to him. He backs away at first, but soon lunges forward to scarf it down.

“Good, huh? You come with me and you can have the whole bowl.”

I toss him another piece, then another, until he’s right in front of me and sniffing the almost empty container.

“You’re a hungry guy, aren’t you? Where’d you come from?”

I lay the bowl down in front of him and gently reach out, patting the top of his head. He flinches, but when he realizes my pets come with chicken, he loosens up and lets me pet him.

“You’re a dirty boy. You need a bath.”

He pauses, cocking his head to the side as if I told him he had just inherited an estate and two million dollars from a prince overseas.

“Bath? Do you like that word?”

Happily, he wags his tail and it’s the cutest thing I think I’ve ever seen.

“Okay. We can go take a bath. But you aren’t sleeping with me.”

He eyes me. I eye him. Then I crack.

“Okay, fine. You can sleep with me. But you’d better not have fleas or I’m not sharing my chicken with you, again.”

With a giant glob of slobber on his tongue, he licks my face and pushes me flat on my ass.

“Hey, that’s rude,” I laugh, scratching behind his ears and struggling to my feet. “Come on. Let’s go get you washed up.”

“So . . . come here often?”

The dog just stares at me, still happily wagging his tail as I scrub him down. Luckily, he doesn’t have fleas, but he does have a problem with conversation. And manners. And slobber.

“We need to think of a name for you,” I tell him as I scrub his fur. “Tuna. Tom. Toast?”

He cocks his head at Toast and looks at me quizzically.

“Toast?” I repeat and he licks my chin. “Okay. Toast it is. I guess you look like light toast. My favorite kind of toast, really.”

He doesn’t respond.

“Listen, can you put in a good word for me with the cats? I want to give the big orange one a home, too.”

Still no response.

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